Fate x Dystopias
by Miniature Garden
Summary: Shirou Emiya is orphaned when his foster father is murdered by the secret police; Rin Tohsaka, a daughter of nobility, joins the Vanguard in their rebellion against the empire; and a girl awakens in an unknown place with little more than her own name: Remi. Three perfect strangers are pressed by circumstance into a single fire-forged alliance during the Empirical Holy Grail War. AU


_"I" was born from perdition._

_The question of why never left me._

_"I" have lived a hundred different lives,_

_And died a thousand little deaths._

_Unable to remember,_

_Unable to forget._

_Please, somehow,_

_Remember my name._

_..._

Daybreak: a time when the birds chirped no more. What reason was there for me to rise? It was only morning because my bedside clock told me so with its unstoppable hands.

I had to be somewhere; I could have been anywhere.

Those waking feelings were of desperation, and futility, and emptiness, all for reasons untold.

This bed did not belong to me. This steel-paneled room was not my own. My past never existed.

My mind was like a blank slate, each passing minute preserved as a monochrome frame, no more and no less. To compensate I made up memories, but with every one came a piercing sorrow. It ended there. It became deeper.

I curled up on the cot, swaddled in linens, scrabbling for answers today, again. My name was… Remi, I remembered.

It felt as if I were being forcibly logged out of my consciousness. Static whirled in my blighted vision upon trying to think of my family, or last night's dinner, or even what I looked like.

A distorted landscape continued in my mind.

At last I gave up this pondering at all and endeavored to stand, which proved more difficult than I had expected. My knees buckled and balked under my weight, slight as it was. I reached for the top rail of a nearby chair for support.

The folds of a cargo skirt chafed against my thighs. At least I was not mistaken about my gender. Surely, when I looked in the mirror, I would see a familiar face. And yet…

That someone in the looking glass was someone I had not seen before. It could have been a boy, or a girl, with chin-length black hair and jagged fringe falling over long-lashed brown eyes. The skin was pallid, almost sickly, but youthful, the frame so thin and willowy that the brown roll-neck shirt clothing it hung loosely from its contours.

Impossible, I thought. I touched my blanched cheek, and the androgynous figure in the mirror did the same. It was a pretty face, yet not mine. It felt as if I inhabited a stranger's body.

I realized that, in my reflection, the only thing that made sense—the only thing I could think of, the only thing falling from my grasp—was an emblem seemingly tattooed on the back of my hand.

Something inside me resonated with it. Suddenly, that crimson crest became my sole lifeline. I glanced around the bedchamber that contained me, gripping my left hand with my right, greatly emboldened. All I noticed was the sliver of light allowed in by a single window's blinds, and a dirty metal goblet by the clock.

I slipped outside without further thought.

The adjoining hallway looked the very picture of austerity. Not a thing struck me as peculiar. I passed a small reading room, a storage space, and finally a darkened flight of stairs before reaching the hall's end. Immediately I assumed that the stairwell might lead to a kitchen and dining area, but no desire burned within me to descend it.

I returned to the bedroom, half-awake and mired by fatigue, and reached for the metallic blinds of the window to let in some light.

And how I wished I had not.

The sky burned. Houses collapsed into ruin. Roads came to an end. Blood ran in torrents.

There were uniformed soldiers with guns, kicking at dead bodies on the pavement. Everyone—man, woman, child alike—was dying.

This had to be a nightmare. It had to be. I could not think; I could only register the sights I saw.

As the streets cleared, one straggling soldier had a brown-haired young woman wearing red backed into a corner. My heart ached as he grabbed hold of her wrist and jerked her forward, throttling the poor thing back and forth, even though her deep turquoise eyes shone with remarkable defiance.

Something inside me broke as the realization struck me afresh, like a cauterizing bolt from the blue. That woman had much more to live for than I, with loved ones and experiences, past and future, alike. She had a blooming horizon ahead of her, while I had none.

I decided in that moment that I would try to save a life, seeing as mine meant so little. For good precaution I took the goblet on my nightstand and rushed out of the bedroom that, for a time, I called home.

On the last landing of the stairs I found the truth, one misfortune after another, perhaps the greatest reason for my discomfort. I was standing in the heart of a building gutted by fires and bloodshed. For some untold reason the topmost level went untouched, but somehow… How had I not noticed this? Furthermore, how had I ended here?

There was no door to speak of, and so I maneuvered about the home's wreckage and darted into the streets. The girl, by this time, had been thrown to the ground by her assailant. I charged at him with only a tarnished goblet for defense.

By some great stroke of luck, the goblet slipped from fingers as I raised it to strike and smashed into the back of the soldier's head.

"Holy—!" The girl watched in astonishment as he toppled over and fell face first to the ground.

"Are you okay?" I gasped, commencing retrieval of my precious weapon of mass destruction.

"Y-you are a Master!" she said, in ignorance of my question.

"Well, I would not say that. This cup did all the work…"

"No, your hand. That is a Command Seal. Where is your Servant?"

"I—what?"

"Well… this should be safe enough, seeing as those blasted Soldiers of Silence are gone. Archer, come!" called the girl. She smiled at me and explained, "I should thank you for your heroic rescue. But, truth to tell, I was never in any danger."

A handsome, dark-skinned man with white hair materialized right at the girl's side. I stumbled backwards, much to my chagrin, just for the sheer abruptness of his appearance. He too was clad in red, with two swords, one black and one white, in both hands.

"What is this, Rin?" demanded the so-called Archer. "Have you stooped so low that you must be rescued by a cross-dressing young boy?"

I felt a rosy blush rise to my face in a fitful tide of progression, growing even redder as I endeavored to keep it down.

"I-I am a girl," I informed him pointedly. "My name is Remi."

"Rin Tohsaka," returned the girl. "And this is Archer, my Servant."

He shook his head, perchance out of embarrassment. "Well. I suppose… err, she's the seventh Master."

"A nameless, Servant-less one at that," remarked Rin, like I did not hear that comment. "That just will not do. She does not even seem capable of using magic. What _do_ you know how to do?"

"…Nothing," I admitted outright. "I do not use this magic you speak of. I cannot even comprehend what you mean by 'Master!'"

"I see," Rin said. "It would be a shame to kill a defenseless little Master, would it not?"

Kill? Was I hearing that right? This girl, Rin Tohsaka did not look like a coldhearted killer, but rather a schoolgirl, what with her knit red sweater and innocent smile.

Archer sighed. "Are you completely unaware of the Holy Grail Wars?"

"No?" Both of them were setting the pace far too fast.

"The Holy Grail War. They have been a part of the empire's past for longer than we know." added Rin. "It is, in fact, kill or be killed, whether you want the Holy Grail or not."

My heart began racing, faster and faster, as the two spoke of things and places of which I had never heard. Where was I? When was I? And most of all…

"Why me?" I blurted, letting the goblet fall from my limp hand. "I wake up with no memories at all, of anything, in the ruins of some apartment, and they expect me to fight in a war? I do not wish to hurt anyone!"

I looked down at the soldier I had struck over the head, overcome with guilt upon seeing the blood that oozed from his scalp.

"I apologize," I said, too ashamed to meet the gazes of Rin and Archer. "I—"

"Remi…" said Rin in a hushed voice. "I am truly sorry for what has happened, to you especially. I want to help. And, you're one of the few Masters not under the Superior so…"

Her statement trailed off into silence.

I raised my eyes, confused, only to find where she pointed an unsteady finger.

The fallen goblet was glowing with a brilliant luster, until its radiance turned blinding. In time to this display the Command Seal burned like mad on my skin. It felt as if my body were on fire, my bones annealed in venom and tempered in liquid gold. Flecks of metallic gold sped past the edges of my peripheral vision.

"Why, you dare to summon a _king_?" inquired a smooth voice behind me, strangely dangerous, like silk hiding steel.

I came face-to-face with the single most beautiful man I had ever seen, unable to tear my gaze from that face. His blond hair stuck up around his head at all angles like a crown, with a few errant locks falling carelessly over a pair of wine-red eyes. He stood stately in a golden metal ensemble, emanating an indescribable sense of majesty, sculptured arms folded over a broad chest.

"You there, little wench," he said, with a smirk quirking his lips. "Yes, you, girl. It would seem you have brought the King of Heroes here before you. Tell me now before I lose my patience: Are you my Master?"

I exhaled a long stream of air, hiding my amusement at the fact that such a King would think me a girl. For the first time, quieted, I became fully cognizant of my own breathing, and how the hold-release pattern huddled around a silent, incongruous line.

I was me. I was still alive. And I would not go down without a fight.

My thoughts shifted to his question. Unlike those I earlier asked myself, to which I had no answers, everything seemed to fit into place, as if the cogs were once more beginning to turn. This was my Servant. And with him, the King of Heroes, I envisioned myself doing even the impossible. It was a childish, irrational reverie, but I supposed that it was his air of grandeur that influenced me.

I held a hand out to him, and smiled.

"Yes, I am."

* * *

_Fate x Dystopias_ - Chapter II: Ghosts in the Water


End file.
